Idaho Capital Asian Market — Local services in Garden City

Every weekend, Idaho Capital Asian Market in Boise features Taiwanese style breads and a few other bakery items, from a Taiwanese bakery in City of Industry, CA called I Fu Tang aka IFT Bakery. The original location is in San Gabriel.

It took me some serious Internet sleuthing to figure out which bakery it was, because when I asked, I was just shown a screenshot of a website with no identifying information, and everything was written in Chinese. I was also told the bakery was in City of Industry.

Man Chen opened the San Gabriel location of I Fu Tang aka IFT Bakery in 1990, after moving to the US from Taiwan. His family is the fourth generation owners of a famous Taiwanese bakery called Yi Fu Tang Bakery that has been open since 1928.

Taiwanese breads are softer, moister, rise more, and stay fresh longer than Western style breads due to an Asian baking technique, Tangzhong. But you can apply the same technique to any bread. For those who want to know more, I’ll include some information in the comments. Taiwanese spreads are also sweeter than most Western style breads due to the addition of sugar.

When I visited Idaho Capital Asian Market on 11/18/23, I bought 4 items:

Custard Bread ($2.99) - This is a fluffy, slightly sweet bread with a nice amount of custard in the middle. I liked it, but next time I will heat it up in the oven for a few minutes first.

Raisin Bread - ($2.99) - This is a fluffy, slightly sweet bread with raisins. This was my favorite of the three breads. I would have liked it more if it had a few more raisins and/or if the raisins had been more evenly distributed. Most of the raisins are on the surface of the bread.

Taro Bread - ($2.99) - This is a fluffy, slightly sweet bread with a little bit of taro paste swirl through the top portion of the bread. The taro flavor is very subtle, but I liked it.

Chocolate Swiss Roll ($3.99) - This is a light sponge cake with a subtly flavored whipped cream filling. I like Swiss Rolls, but the flavor in this one was a bit too subtle for me.

In addition to having great bakery items, Idaho Capital Asian Market is the best Asian market in Idaho. It rivals many of the Asian markets I’ve visited in...

The market management should retrain the staff in customer service skills. This afternoon I went to the market to buy some boxes of oyster sauce. I didn't see anyone to ask so I went back to the IT room to ask for help. At first I thought of buying only 2 or 3 boxes, and the young man told me to get them myself. I was ok with it because there were only 2 or 3 boxes. But after I went back to the area to get the oyster sauce, I saw that the listed price was very good and I decided to buy 10 boxes. Since 10 boxes is a lot and too heavy, I need help. I went back to the IT room and asked the young man to help me loading 10 boxes of oyster sauce, or he could call someone to help me. But no, he went out and said: "You go get it yourself, the cart is over there, you're young, why do you need help! And so he went back to the IT room and said I'm very busy" (I didn't see him busy at all, he just sat at the computer and clicked the mouse). His way of speaking was very rude and insolent 😡. This is how you take care of your customers! Or is that young man the manager there or the boss's son? And if that's true, it's really dangerous! In the US, customer care is a top skill to support customers, to help them when they need help. Even if your company has very good support, but the way you take care of customers like that, no one will buy! And because of that guy's insolence, I decided not to buy a box of oysters even if the price was...

Terrible Customer Service - Avoid This Place!

I bought a box of Napa cabbage from this store for $45.50, and it was terrible—rotting, misshapen, and mostly unusable for making Kimchi. When I went back for a refund, the owner/manager rudely refused, blaming me for cutting the cabbages. She claimed they couldn’t control the quality this season, but as a store, it’s their responsibility to ensure quality. After showing her the poor condition of the produce, she ignored me and walked away, offering no help or apology.

Good thing I cut the cabbages in half, or you might have bought them and only realized how bad they were when preparing your meal. The store owner doesn’t care about quality control or customer satisfaction—just selling bad products and refusing responsibility.

I paid $45.50 and wasted two 20-mile trips for this. If you value good service and quality, go to Diana Gift & Grocery or any other Asian market. I will NEVER return...